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Saturday, 26 October 2013

During my ride through Paris last month for Fashion Week, I discovered a wonderful 'Collection-Prémiere' - YULIA VITAL. The American designer, based in Los Angeles, presented for the 1st time ever her collection at Hotel Lotti, 7 Rue de Castiglione, in a splendide showroom apartment. Enjoy my personal insights on this wonderfully shaped collection. LoL, Andrea

'The New Brave Feminity - In the center of the Yulia Vital vision is the ideology to design for the modern woman. She captures the elusive spirit of that powerful complexity at the very essence of the new woman of style. Using texture, form and sculptural techniques, every piece introduce new dimensions - a world of soft layers, color shades and depth. There is true architecture, created from lines, shape and structure. Inspired by the industrialized world, Yulia Vital seeks to embody the strength and sophistication of women today ...

... Inspired by the industrialized world, Yulia Vital secks to embody the strength and sophistications of women today. In the fast changing, ever evolving, digital overload known as the 21st century arises a new brave feminity; a strong female figure that strays away from the glamorous, over-the-top, in your face lifestyle of those struggling with the superficial manifestations of a culture in economic and political ruin. Instead she embarks on a spiritual journey, one of enligthenment, taking her to the distant and beautiful landscapes of Asia and Europe, looking for something more to believe in. Preferring the simplicity of luxurious sobriety she is in a perpetual state of wanderlust, a need and a desire for seclusion and contemplation, a voyage of self reflection ...

... Her road is a long one, her journey never really complete, the search for true beauty and perfection always a step ahead. Her uniform protects her from the elements and reflects her monastic and tranquil state of mind, a sub-dued, wrapped, and draped silhouette, a modest covering of the body, an abandonment of sensual pleasures, and a muted colorless palette reflect her inner aura. Caught bewtween her natural environment and the simplicity and structure of minimalist modern living, she is guiding heroine of the season..' - Yulia Vital

'For Fall/Winter 2013/14 the stylistic duo Ken Kaufman and Isaac Franco
presented a decisively noir mood. The cinematographic world of mystery,
spying, and
secrets has given life to a heroine dressed in dark shades, sado-chic
suits in leather, overcoats trimmed in fur, transparent-like webbing,
and the infallible trench. The evening is also charged with dark
seduction through long, tapered dresses that show off shoulders and
cleavage or with attire that is entirely embroidered.'

Tuesday, 22 October 2013

It all started with an orchestral tune-up and a drum roll. The music set
the tone: the piece in question, "From the New World", the symphony by
Antonín Dvořák, seems to have been drawn from some far-off modern
horizon. "I don't want people to be able to know exactly where these
women come from, or where they are going, but that they exist in a place
in flux, where everything seems possible" , explained Raf Simons in
a preamble to his collection.

From the first looks to appear one could
recognize Christian Dior's emblematic silhouette with its bust and
shapely hips, its whittled waist, a figure-of-eight silhouette to better
flatter the shape of a woman's body. But this silhouette is culled from
another, new world. It's a roomy jacket that crosses over tightly under
the bust as though belted by a martingale; it's a short, in culotte
form over the hips, fluttering into a pleated skirt; it's an opening in
the construction of a jacket for a peek of flesh at the waist; it's silk
that drapes around the body, outlining the female form through its own
asymmetry. Everything is conceived in order to heighten female beauty.
This reinterpretation of the New Look is a play on the past and the
future, a dialogue between two modernities so close in language but yet
so far apart in expression, between which so many collections have come
into being.

The radical retuning of the house's aesthetic
encapsulated in this modernist vision gives birth to the modern Dior
woman, in full paradox. Sophisticated draping on a simple shirt dress, diagonal pleating that
gives a symmetrical skirt the illusion of asymmetry, lantern dresses
whose multicolored stripes of different widths create an optical
illusion, pieces that look like skirts but are actually shorts, prints
cut into strips whose main motif seems to appear and disappear according
to the body's movements. It switches endlessly between two worlds,
between reality and the imaginary, between the past and the future.
Between real and unreal, even down to the set, a veritable tropical
cascade alternating fabric flowers and real foliage painted fluorescent
colors.

A decor like none ever seen, of a jaw-dropping beauty that had
the guests in raptures. For the finale - in which the models usually
do a lap of the runway wearing their last outfit - each of the girls
appeared in a different look. Silks and wools in deepest black and
metallic jacquard created unity. One could manage to pick out some of
the reinterpretations of Christian Dior's that Raf Simons had already
shown in the ready-to-wear or haute couture shows since his arrival as
the house's creative director. However, it's not just the fabrics that
changed. The looks themselves were reinterpreted once more, further
extending the powerful dialogue that exists between the two designers.

'Raf Simons set his Dior
show in a jungle beneath a hanging garden of thousands of lianas and
orchids and wisteria that created an extraordinarily beautiful, layered
setting that seemed something of a metaphor for a collection that was
jungle-dense with a mash-up of ideas.'

Saturday, 19 October 2013

Michael van der Ham has a
distinctly hands-on approach to conceptualizing a new collection, and
his starting point is more likely to be found in the vaults of a storied
French textile mill than pinned to a mood board. Having launched onto
the scene straight out of Central Saint Martins four years ago in a riot
of collaged dévoré, van der Ham has set up a richly textured playing
field for his label, and this season lavish fille coupe jacquards caught
his eye.

The defining silhouette, an A-line shift that fell to the
knee, gave a tight focus for his mixed-media experimentations. Once upon
a time the hemline on a van der Ham might have swung in multiple
directions before, but nowadays he’s finding more subtle ways to
incorporate his signature patchwork. The translucent, burnout-like
puddles in the fabric had a flattering effect on the body, alluding
gently to the décolleté.

This grown-up and polished look
has gathered a stable of dedicated fans, and the Dutch-born designer has
been wise to keep an ear open to feedback. After several of his loyal
followers asked for full evening renditions of his signature cocktail
dresses, he started exploring the idea for the runway, and his closing
floor-length and embellished looks took things in an interesting
direction. Ditto for the spaghetti strap pieces that gathered in rounded
pleats around the waist and looked as if they came in two moveable
parts. Clearly there are still plenty of new places for his line to go.

'For Fall/Winter 2013/14 the stylistic duo Ken Kaufman and Isaac Franco
presented a decisively noir mood. The cinematographic world of mystery,
spying, and
secrets has given life to a heroine dressed in dark shades, sado-chic
suits in leather, overcoats trimmed in fur, transparent-like webbing,
and the infallible trench.'